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We have begun to revisit the published information on out webpages. There is increasing discussion of software patents within the institutions, so we are revising the information published on out website. Some updates are already online, and in the coming weeks, we will continue to provide more documentation about the current status as well as summaries of what was learned and what has already happened.
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by: 18 Dec 2007 12:05 |
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One cannot write non-trivial software today without running a serious risk of infringing patents. The software patents minefield we've found ourselves in is a very fundamental threat to the success of free software and we've already begun to see the first casualties and costs. We must eliminate software patents. Now.
The US is very important in this fight (much patent law is "exported" from the US) and almost no organization is working on software patent elimination there. Not enough people are thinking and acting strategically on this issue. The FSF is planning to make major steps in this fight in the coming year and we need your support to do so.
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by: 18 Dec 2007 11:46 |
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Get proactive about software patents: As a community, weve had our head in the sand about software patents for far too long. There are companies and patent trolls sitting on massive, growing piles of software patents. They are not our friends and they do not mean us well. One cannot write non-trivial software today without running a serious risk of infringing patents. The software patents minefield we ve found ourselves in is a very fundamental threat to the success of free software and we ve already begun to see the first casualties and costs. We must eliminate software patents. Now. The US is very important in this fight (much patent law is exported from the US) and almost no organization is working on software patent elimination there. Not enough people are thinking and acting strategically on this issue. The FSF is planning to make major steps in this fight in the coming year and we need your support to do so.
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by: 18 Dec 2007 10:43 |
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Whereas the EPO, at least in the form of Steinbrener, clearly takes the view that interpretation of the law should evolve as technical progress evolves, the English approach is now trying to go back to basics and interpret the law as it is written, without regard to how technology has developed since the law was first put in place. The former approach depends on the ever-changing definition of what is "technical" (which the IPKat challenges anyone to provide a stable definition of), and departs substantially from the wording of the EPC, whereas the latter tries to assess what the claimed invention actually is, in terms of what it contributes to public knowledge, and whether it is excluded. While the different approaches continue, there seems to be little hope of reconciling English patent law with that of the EPO.
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by: 17 Dec 2007 01:03 |
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According to the PTO's own numbers, average pendency is out of control. In the area that may be the most time sensitive (i.e., inventions dealing with computer architecture, software and information security) the average time to a First Office Action on the Merits in FY 2006 was 30.8 months. The total average pendency of these applications in FY 2006 was 44.0 months. Obviously, a patent sytsem that cannot come to resolution on such time sensitive inventions in shorter than 4 years is broken. Soon there will be no reason for people to even file patent applications in this area, which defeats the entire purpose of the patent system.
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by: 16 Dec 2007 21:57 |
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But it does reflect an ugly agreement that is on par with Novell's agreement with Microsoft. Carving out room for Sun's commercial product while leaving OpenOffice (almost wholly developed by Sun) open to patent suits is cynical, however convenient. Again, I don't think we'll ever see a suit from Microsoft on this issue. I just wish Sun wouldn't have capitulated on this point.
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by: 16 Dec 2007 21:51 |
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Ike makes some good points about why Vonage, now owning DPL's patents, are at least in a slightly better position than they were before. I am not at all surprised at this because all along I've said Vonage had very little, if any technology of their own in their network.....This just further supports my feelings.
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by: 16 Dec 2007 21:47 |
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Amazon has been stripped of a shopping system patent, just weeks after it was forced to shrink the scope of its famous 'one click' patent. The European Patent Office (EPO) has revoked an Amazon patent on a gift ordering system. Amazon had been granted a European patent for its invention, but this was opposed by an Interflora company, the German Society of Information Sciences and the Foundation for Free Information Infrastructure.
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by: 16 Dec 2007 21:41 |
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Nortel Networks has sued Vonage Holdings Corp., alleging Vonage is infringing 12 Nortel patents. Of course, in some ways it is a counter-suit, as Vonage earlier had sued Nortel seeking to invalidate three of the patents. An injunction would prevent Vonage from using technology that relates to 911 and 411 calls, as well as its "click to call" feature.
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by: 16 Dec 2007 21:31 |
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Nokia is interested to see technologies being accepted that are technically competitive, have already gained wide market acceptance, and of which the commercial terms are reasonably well known. This is the case for video compression technologies such as H.264, and audio compression such as AAC. Recommending these codecs would be our choice. However, we understand that there are groups in W3C who will have difficulties to accept the business models associated with these codecs, and at this point in time. [...] All these alternatives are, in our opinion, preferable over the recommendation of the Ogg technologies, based almost exclusively on the current perception of them being free.
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by: 16 Dec 2007 18:38 |
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Lastly Dr Froehlinger addressed the controversial issue of bifurcation. The Commission's aim is to introduce choice and flexibility into the system and she insisted that there would be no imposed bifurcation of validity and infringement proceedings. [...] She agreed that states should be dissuaded from having local chambers if that resulted in compromised quality. In an upbeat conclusion she claimed to be optimistic, albeit with the 'innocence of a newcomer', and confirmed that the Commission believes that France is hoping to reach an agreement on these proposals under its forthcoming presidency.
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by: 14 Dec 2007 21:47 |
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The same cannot be said for MPEG. Despite the MPEG proponents' claims that MPEG-licensed codecs protect against liability, patent disputes involving MPEG codecs have occurred as recently as the past few months. For example, Lucent v. Gateway [4] and Multimedia Patent Trust v. Microsoft Corp. The MPEG-LA's own sublicense disclaimer warns that licensees are not protected from patent-related litigation nor are they protected from submarine patents.
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by: 14 Dec 2007 11:11 |
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A Federal Court judge has found that MercExchange LLC is due $30 million from eBay in compensation for a patent breach of MercExchange’s “Buy It Now” patent, a long standing feature available on eBay auctions.
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by: 13 Dec 2007 13:54 |
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A Federal Court judge has found that MercExchange LLC is due $30 million from eBay in compensation for a patent breach of MercExchange’s “Buy It Now” patent, a long standing feature available on eBay auctions.
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by: 13 Dec 2007 13:52 |
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Prof. Magliocca compares 19th century problems with "patent sharks" to today's problems with "patent trolls" and suggests the only politically acceptable path out of today's problems may be the path taken out of the 19th century problems, i.e. elimination of the class of patents that triggered the problems. He provides tons of interesting context, but here's one of his proposals: "If the historical parallel between sharks and trolls rings true, then the obvious implication is that repeal is the only real answer to the troll problem. This is does not mean that we should wipe out all technology patents. A more discriminating approach would focus on the most problematic of these patents, which deal with software and business methods. Critics of the recent expansion of patent subject matter into these areas might describe this “experiment” as a disaster on a par with the design patent fiasco of the 1860s."
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by: 13 Dec 2007 13:36 |
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NYU sued the software manufacturer Autodesk for infringement of two of the University’s gesture synthesizer software patents. Both patents stemmed from an original non-provisional application. (Serial No. 08/284,799). That application received a final office action in the Spring of 1997, but the PTO did not receive any response until November 1998 – 18 months later.
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by: 13 Dec 2007 13:30 |
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Mr Noble said the PIN-SME would help smaller firms speak with one voice on European technology policies, helping them to earn fairer rights on software patents. The association, which represents more than 50,000 small companies in eight countries, will also help to standardise einvoicing, e-health and e-skills.
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by: 13 Dec 2007 09:08 |
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A US district judge has penned the latest chapter in eBay's long-standing patent infringement battle with MercExchange LLC. Since 2003, eBay has been fighting a jury's decision that its Buy It Now feature infringes on two patents held by MercExchange, originally an auction site itself over a decade ago. eBay fought off an injunction earlier this year, but the judge's ruling today orders eBay to pay $30 million to MercExchange, LLC.
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by: 13 Dec 2007 09:06 |
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The hacker also took a shot at HP in the messages on milw0rm.com and Bugtraq. "I think the company so deeply involved in security software patents war should take a bigger care about the users' security than taking profits from the rights to the invention of the circle," said porkythepig. "After all, what are the security software patents worth if it is the user who has the final word about their own software security?" It was unclear what "patents war" porkythepig referred to, but HP recently settled with web application security vendor Cenzic to cross-license multiple patents that had been at the heart of two lawsuits filed by SPI Dynamics, a security testing tools developer acquired by HP in June. The settlement was announced by the two companies on 1 October, and the lawsuits were immediately dropped.
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by: 13 Dec 2007 09:05 |
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The belief at Philips – and it is one that I share and have written about frequently – is that at the moment the voice of European IP is too fragmented: there are a number of national groupings and industry organisations, but no highly visible one-stop shop putting the case for IP on a continent-wide basis. This puts IP owners at a considerable disadvantage when they come up against a well-organised opposition – as was the case in the software patents/CII debate and is so even now with regard to things such as the Community patent and the EPLA. To get politicians to take IP seriously, there needs to be a Europe-wide advocacy group with the muscle and resources no only to respond to issues but also to set the agenda. The European IPO would be that body.
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by: 13 Dec 2007 08:58 |
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